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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Nightmare on Query Street Formatting

ARE YOU READY?

The submission window opens at 12 noon (EST) on Wednesday, October 15th!(Tomorrow) The
window will close at 8pm on Friday the 17th, or when we receive 225 entries. Any entries sent before noon will be deleted.We
are accepting all age categories and genres, excluding picture books
and exotica. Despite the title of the contest, your book does not have
to be horror.

Michelle, Mike, and SC will dig through the slush pile and choose twelve entries for each of our teams. After being critiqued by one of our awesome mentors (October 22nd-25th) those 36 finalists will go up on
our blogs for the agent round (October 28th-30th).

There are a few important stipulation to be aware of:

1. If you are in the PitchSlam agent round, you may NOT submit an entry into the Nightmare on Query Street contest.

2. To participate, you must be followingALL of our blogs (Michelle, Mike, and SC).

3. ONE entry per person. No exceptions. If you have more than one work ready, choose the work you think is strongest.

4. Submission guidelines need to be followed to the letter.

5. In order to participate in NoQS, your novel must be completed, polished, and ready to send to agents.

6. If you've already queried your novel to most or all of the agents participating in the contest, please do not submit the work. It would be counterproductive for everyone.

The Format:

Send your one and only submission to nightmareonquerystreet (at) yahoo (dot) com. Only one submission per email address/person is allowed. If you break this rule, all of your submissions will be deleted without question or warning.

Here's
how it should be formatted (yes, include the bolded and everything!)
Please use Times New Roman (or equivalent), 12 pt font, and put spaces
between paragraphs. No indents or tabs are needed. No worries if your
gmail doesn't have Times New Roman.

Subject Line: First initial. Last name: TITLE, Age Category + Genre

(example: M. Anthony: DEADEARTH, NA Apocalyptic Sci-fi )

In The Email:

Name: Michael Anthony

Title: DEADEARTH EP. 1: MR. .44 MAGNUM (yes, caps!)

Genre: NA Apocalyptic Sci-fi(Age category and genre. YA/MG is not a genre.)

Word Count: XX,XXX

My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obstacle:

(Can be from your MC's POV, but doesn't have to be. 100 words or less.)

Query:

Here is my fantastic query! Include only the good parts, no bio, greeting, or closing.

First 250 words:

Here are the first 250 words of my manuscript, and I will not end in the middle of a sentence, even if I hit 255 words :)

Conformation
emails will be sent. If you don't get one, ask one of us on twitter.
Submissions will cut off after 225 entries. We'll announce closure of
submissions on twitter.

Again,
the picks will go live for the agent round on October 28th. Prior to that, we will send finalists an email letting you know who your mentor is.

Please do not comment on the entries! No cheerleading this time.

Requesting agents will:

Scream for a full request

Shriek for 50 pages

Shiver for 10 pages---------------------------------------------

TWITTER PARTY!

Just as we did with Query Kombat, we're going to have a Twitter party where contest hosts and mentors get to mingle with the awesome writers who've entered Nightmare on Query Street.

Like earlier this year, we've got some questions for entrants to answer under the hashtag #NoQS

10.15.2014 (Submission Day!): Title of your book and the time you emailed it.

10.16.2014: If I knocked on your MC's front door on Halloween, would I get a trick or a treat?

10.17.2014: What is your MC going to be for Halloween?

10.18.2014: Your MC goes on a haunted hayride. What would make him/her scream the loudest?

10.19.2014: If your MC could pull one prank on Halloween and not get caught, what would it be?

10.20.2014: What would your antagonist do for Halloween?10.21.2014: What scary setting will your MC be in on Halloween? Will they be hiding under a bed or prancing around a graveyard?10.22.2014: What is your MC's favorite scary movie or would they watch a scary movie?